Monday, May 16, 2016

2016 Houston Marathon Analysis

Sorry for the delay in getting this out. I started a new job this week which has been great as I was fairly miserable in the previous work I was doing. It has been a busy 3 weeks trying to help finish things up at my old job (not much slacking for me in my last two weeks), and then ramping up at a new job. Oh, and also training peak week as I attempt to re-qualify at Mountains 2 Beach in two weeks (Pfitzinger's 6 weeks between marathons plan is fairly demanding).

I very much want to get to the Boston Results before M2B for selfish reasons: I want to know, roughly, what the cut off situation might be.

Anyway, Houston.

I ran this race last year, undertrained, and pulled my 2nd fastest marathon out of my rear. The course is flat (except the end has some rollers, but, I actually liked that just to break up the monotony). Spectators are pretty good, I mean, not like a major. You have stretches wth no spectators. It's very well run. Has reasonable guaranteed qualification standards, and the weather is usually pretty good. I would definitely recommend this race. Just plan for your Garmin to track it long (not sure if the course is long, or if the buildings downtown mess things up, but I got like 26.5 miles at the end).

A reader commented on the last post that performances were better in 2017 and that is definitely true. This race basically brought the total qualifier numbers up to be nearly the same as 2016.

AG Group

2016 Qualifiers

2016 AG Total

Percentage

2017 Qualifiers

2017 AG Total

Percentage

F18-34

99

1015

9.75%

134

1086

12.34%

F35-39

55

537

10.24%

89

633

14.06%

F40-44

47

479

9.81%

60

511

11.74%

F45-49

48

307

15.64%

65

366

17.76%

F50-54

35

209

16.75%

42

248

16.94%

F55-59

14

106

13.21%

21

116

18.10%

F60-64

8

48

16.67%

9

43

20.93%

F65-69

2

6

33.33%

2

10

20.00%

F70-74

0

2

0.00%

0

2

0.00%

F75-79

0

0

0.00%

0

0

0.00%

F80+

0

0

0.00%

0

0

0.00%

M18-34

84

1159

7.25%

121

1340

9.03%

M35-39

51

669

7.62%

68

715

9.51%

M40-44

51

722

7.06%

73

788

9.26%

M45-49

63

607

10.38%

63

674

9.35%

M50-54

60

483

12.42%

64

551

11.62%

M55-59

43

348

12.36%

58

377

15.38%

M60-64

19

183

10.38%

26

184

14.13%

M65-69

8

63

12.70%

15

85

17.65%

M70-74

4

19

21.05%

3

22

13.64%

M75-79

1

6

16.67%

2

5

40.00%

M80+

0

0

0.00%

2

4

50.00%

Totals

692

6968

9.93%

917

7760

11.82%

That's a pretty big increase in qualifiers year over year.

The breakdown of margin:

Margin

2016

Percentage

2017

Percentage

<1 minute

50

7.23%

54

5.89%

1-2 minutes

37

5.35%

49

5.34%

2-3 minutes

45

6.50%

45

4.91%

3-4 minutes

48

6.94%

42

4.58%

4-5 minutes

40

5.78%

60

6.54%

5-10 minutes

139

20.09%

198

21.59%

10-20 minutes

166

23.99%

213

23.23%

20> minutes

167

24.13%

256

27.92%

Totals

692

917

The Squeaker Pack shrunk from 31.79% to 27.26%!

You probably already know what trend the rest of the data is going to follow with the Houston numbers.

AG Group

2016 Qualifiers

20156 AG Total

Percentage

2017 Qualifiers

2017 AG Total

Percentage

F18-34

2827

34074

0.08296648471

2640

32702

0.0807290074

F35-39

1215

13287

0.0914427636

1245

13218

0.09418974126

F40-44

1208

12516

0.09651645893

1146

12073

0.09492255446

F45-49

1190

8679

0.1371125706

1163

8946

0.1300022356

F50-54

722

5672

0.1272919605

785

5972

0.1314467515

F55-59

389

2864

0.1358240223

380

2824

0.1345609065

F60-64

168

1168

0.1438356164

181

1197

0.1512113617

F65-69

49

359

0.1364902507

59

390

0.1512820513

F70-74

10

109

0.09174311927

13

123

0.1056910569

F75-79

1

24

0.04166666667

1

20

0.05

F80+

1

3

0.3333333333

3

8

0.375

M18-34

2504

30893

0.08105396044

2350

29164

0.08057879578

M35-39

1208

16229

0.07443465401

1224

15541

0.07875941059

M40-44

1369

17450

0.07845272206

1365

16434

0.08305951077

M45-49

1650

14088

0.117120954

1564

13978

0.111890113

M50-54

1315

10948

0.1201132627

1220

10918

0.1117420773

M55-59

793

6382

0.1242557192

831

6633

0.1252826775

M60-64

484

3307

0.1463562141

533

3333

0.1599159916

M65-69

213

1340

0.1589552239

214

1421

0.1505981703

M70-74

67

466

0.143776824

60

468

0.1282051282

M75-79

10

122

0.08196721311

15

136

0.1102941176

M80+

2

26

0.07692307692

5

35

0.1428571429

Totals

17395

180006

9.66%

16997

175534

9.68%

Houston bumped the qualification rate up! But because the participants have been down for most feeders, the number of qualifiers is still down by 2.29%.

Margin

2016

Percentage

2017

Percentage

<1 minute

1106

0.06358148893

1003

0.0590104136

1-2 minutes

1023

0.05881000287

977

0.05748073189

2-3 minutes

991

0.05697039379

878

0.05165617462

3-4 minutes

863

0.04961195746

822

0.04836147555

4-5 minutes

822

0.04725495832

723

0.04253691828

5-10 minutes

3522

0.2024719747

3452

0.2030946638

10-20 minutes

4542

0.2611095142

4559

0.2682238042

20> minutes

4526

0.2601897097

4583

0.2696358181

Totals

17395

16997

Squeaker Pack 2016: 27.62%
Squeaker Pack 2017: 25.90%

Nothing new there. It's actually a little bit bigger than the last update (after CIM it was 25.83%).

Alright, so clearly, the cutoff prediction is going to inch up.

The number of runners achieving 2:26 margin or better for the 2016 qualification year at this point in the feeder schedule was 14,777.

Taking the qualifiers for the 2017 qualification year, sorting on margin descending, the 14,777th runner has a margin of...

135 seconds or 2:15

We know that Boston was hot this year. Most people I know that ran, including myself, were anywhere from 5 minutes to 30+ minutes slower. The elites were ~7 minutes slower. I will be surprised if we don't see the cutoff inch down.